Last Friday, I had the pleasure of attending an Entrepreneur’s Roundtable event that featured my friend and neighbor. He spoke about his business, which he recently sold. His story was moving and inspirational, and he shared many of the lessons he learned over the years and how he overcame various obstacles.
The funniest part of the story, however, was when he spoke about winning an award for being a top entrepreneur of the year. A reporter came up to him and asked, “So, how does it feel to be an overnight success?” My friend was dumbfounded, and didn’t know what to say or even how to respond.
The business that he sold was twenty years in the making. Several of those years were very difficult, including the “rice and bean” years where he and his family sacrificed his income so that he could make payroll for his employees. Or the year when the government nearly changed the rules on his business model which would have meant a total loss of everything he had worked for.
The moral of the story is that there is no such thing as an overnight success in business. The path to winning is long and requires lots of sacrifice and hard work, as well as risk. Continuous learning is required to stay ahead of the trends. That’s the ”secret sauce” that so many look for. Unfortunately for them, it’s not an overnight recipe!